This invention concerns rotisseries and more particularly cradle type rotisseries, in which the food is held by being clamped in a confining rotated basket cradle rather than being pierced by a spit or penetrating prongs.
The cradle design by eliminating the piercing of meat pieces avoids the escape of internal juices is reduced as well as the conduction of heat to the inside of the roast, producing a juicier, more tender roast.
Such cradle type rotisseries are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,505,192; 4,593,613; 4,688,477; 4,787,302; 5,325,767; and 5,497,697. In these prior designs, the meat or other food item to be roasted is clamped by adjustably positioned rods, engaging the surface of the food item to be roasted. This adjustment requires some time and effort to set, and to release. In addition, these adjustments require mittens to be worn when the cradle is too hot to handle.
The prior cradles have been constructed of a series of parallel rods welded, bolted or riveted to a pair of end plates, the end plates mounting the rotary supports for the cradles. The approach has several disadvantages, i.e., the process of welding rods to the end plates is expensive and prone to failure. The end plates make the cradle heavier, and more cumbersome, and is more difficult to clean because numerous small corners are created at the junction of the rods and the end plates.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a rotisserie cradle of the type described of an improved construction which is lighter, cheaper to make, less prone to have manufacturing defects, and easier to clean.
It is another object of the present invention to provide such a rotisserie cradle in which securing and releasing the food to be cooked is simpler and easier and does not require slow manual adjustments to be made on screw elements or the like.
These objects and others which will be understood upon a reading of the following specification and claims, are achieved by a rotisserie cradle including a trough shaped cradle framework which is constructed entirely of a welded framework of rods, and does not include the solid end plates of the prior art.
The cradle framework is formed by a series of rectangular rod frames of decreasing width, held in a spaced apart stacked array to form the cradle framework by means of series of U-shaped pieces welded to the sides of the rectangular rod frames as well as a U-shaped piece welded to each end of the spaced apart stack of frames.
A rotational shaft support socket is held at each end by a grooved block captured by end rod segments of two adjacent rod frames. The U-shaped pieces welded at the ends each confine one of the grooved blocks to locate the same centered on the cradle ends. This construction eliminates end plates to provide a lighter, easier to handle and clean rotisserie cradle which is cheaper to construct and is less likely to have manufacturing defects.
The food items to be roasted are held against the inside of the cradle framework by one or more gratings which can each be swung into the trough-shaped interior of the cradle framework, each mounted on an outer end of pivoted swing anus which is held in any selected position by a frictional snubber device so as to hold the food item against the inside of the cradle trough.
Each hold down grate has a connection to a swing arm that allows tilting movement of the grate in any direction to conform the same to the particular contour of the food item.
Each hold down grates is connected to the swing arm off centered in the lengthwise direction so as to tilt away when the swing arm is swung out, allowing room for the food item to be loaded into the cradle framework without having to manually hold the grate out of the way.